The Natural Sciences

The Science area of Knowledge is the area where I kick my boots off, sit back by the hotel pool on my holidays, and let myself get entertained. I make no pretense at knowing anything about this area of life. I can't count and that seems to impede just about any advanced work in the area, and what little else I learned I learned in kindergarten.

However, this is the area of life where my sense of awe comes out the most. I am indeed in awe of the marvelous physical and natural world we have been set in, and am appalled at the abusive and irresponsible attitude we have come to hold towards it as citizens of this planet...myself included. One of those decisive moments in my Masters of Rural Development program was the morning Dr. Doug Ramsey projected a map of Canada showing the areas most severely endangered by the collapsing Biodiversity, and saw the Great Plains area we live in as one of the worst. I had never thought of our area that way before.

Two years ago in the Western Producer, an article reported how an Alberta farmer had his crop die on him suddenly. Experts were called in to find out the problem. They ascertained that it had rained...just enough to bring all the chemicals out of the air, but not enough to dilute them. They did further tests and found that it could have happened anywhere in Alberta. That, to me, is reprehensible.

Science is indeed a fascinating aspect of life, and it finds itself right in the center of both the creation and the resolution of many of our world's problems as we move rapidly from the six to seven billion people level, and gaze out at the other stars and galaxies, and ponder the future of our life together.

The Science Area's Approach To Research

At first glance, it might seem that the Natural Sciences are not concerned with either the Subjective / Affective aspects of life, the effects of the researchers on their objects of study, or the interactive linkages of the object of study and researcher with the environment within which they are situated. Natural Science researchers seem to beat the drum of objectivity and expend great efforts to isolate the object of study from the effects of spurious factors and researcher effects. Some Natural Science researchers call into question the types of research done by qualitative researchers, and wince at the issues of "rigor" and "replicability" which seem to get short shrift in Qualitative circles.

However, there is one very significant area of research which reflects an interest in the subjective dimension of life and the interactive environmental dimensions of all "objects" in life. This natural science area is termed "embodied cognition" or "situated cognition". The base research arises for the most part from the Artificial Intelligence field, as they try to understand the brain body connection and the body world connection. As they press into this field, they are encountering many of the same issues that qualitative researchers are encountering, only from "the other side of the pie". the Researcher

Table of Contents

[*=content in item]

Further Resources

            put in the detailed footnote info here cue for a same document link here cue for a different document link here